Post by CCADP on Jan 13, 2006 6:41:40 GMT -5
Amber's abduction, killing reverberate 10 years later
A branch on a tree in Jim and Glenda Whitson's front yard juts off to the
south, lower than the other limbs and in the opposite direction,
conspicuous in how it hangs alone.
The branch has needed trimming for years, but the couple's granddaughter,
Amber Hagerman, liked to climb the tree and sit on that branch. So it
stays.
In Hurst, her mother keeps 27 Barbie dolls in a box near a scrapbook with
Amber's school certificates, principal's awards and report cards.
Her clothes are folded in drawers, and her pink bicycle is in storage.
"We just can't bring ourselves to throw it away," Glenda Whitson said.
Friday, national Amber Alert Day, is the 10th anniversary of her
abduction, and the death still reverberates. The new Amber Alert postage
stamp will be unveiled in Washington on Friday.
Through the alert system named for the Berry Elementary School 3rd-grader,
broadcasters nationwide have volunteered to interrupt programming to
transmit descriptions and suspect information after child abductions.
Amber's death binds her family, the investigators who still hunt her
killer, the grateful parents of children returned to them by a public
alert system named for the Arlington girl and the faceless man in a black
truck who set all this in motion.
Around 3 p.m. Jan. 13, 1996, Amber rode off on her bike from her
grandparents' central Arlington home. Eight minutes later, a man yanked
the 9-year-old from the bike and into a black pickup.
Her body was found four days later on the bank of a north Arlington creek
east of Texas 360 and north of Green Oaks Boulevard Northeast. Her throat
had been slashed. She wore only a sock on her right foot.
Amber's mother Donna Whitson, now Donna Norris, gives speeches around the
country on child safety and the Amber Alert system when she can afford to
take time off from her job cleaning houses.
Her husband of five years, Randy, writes her speeches. He works on oil
rigs by trade, but she said his words have moved many to tears.
"He never met Amber, but it's still hard for him," Donna Norris said. "He
cries and he has to stop. But he likes to help me, and her."
Norris still has fliers seeking information about Amber's killer ready:
printed and stacked neatly. She hands them out occasionally. They list a
$75,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.
There is no sketch of the suspect. No name.
All that is known is that he looked Anglo or Hispanic and he drove a black
late-model pickup, possibly a Ford, on that day in 1996. He headed west on
Abram Street. That was according to one witness who saw the kidnapping
from a distance while standing in his backyard.
The rest of the description on the flier came from psychological profiles.
CHARACTERISTICS: Approximately 25 years or older, carries a knife, erupts
violently, probably lives alone, possibly recently lost his job or had a
family dispute.
The creek where Amber was found was swollen with recent rain, making
forensic evidence difficult to collect.
Arlington police Sgt. Mark Simpson, who headed his department's Amber Task
Force, now supervises the crimes against persons unit. This crime is the
one that haunts him the most.
"Some things are just beyond the pale," he said.
Beyond the gruesomeness, Simpson said, he is frustrated that a suspect
can't be nabbed in such a haphazard crime.
Amber was taken in broad daylight, along a main thoroughfare. The ramp at
the abandoned Winn-Dixie was in plain view of traffic on Abram Street, a
highly trafficked laundromat and the yards of at least 5 neighbors.
Amber's wounds suggested that the killer was not skilled or experienced
and was perhaps new to this type of crime.
But he got away, despite a task force of 45 officers and four sergeants
working alongside FBI agents and profilers. The city spent more than $1
million to find him. Investigators followed more than 6,000 tips and
leads, and took more than a dozen false confessions.
"The community was just absolutely outraged," Simpson said. "We had every
indication that this guy was not going to stop. And the longer this guy
was out there, the more likely it was that someone else was in danger.
"I have every reason to believe he is still out there," Simpson continued.
"Until I've got him in custody, I'll assume he's a danger to society."
Detective Jim Ford was the lead investigator on the case. Of the 49
Arlington police officers who worked the task force, Ford is the one who
is left working the killing as part of the cold case unit.
Ford has investigated homicides for 23 years and estimates he has worked
on more than 300. He said Amber's case, "without a doubt," is the one that
keeps him up nights.
There is a picture of Amber in his cubicle. He still visits the site of
the kidnapping and Amber's grave. He said he receives about one tip per
month, which is investigated and added to the still-operational database
of Amber information.
"There is nothing worse than a child being brutally murdered," Ford said.
"Everybody went all out, trying to help. There were lots of volunteers and
various businesses put up reward money. We all really wanted to solve this
one."
Killers such as this typically don't stop, Simpson said. Officers have
kept up on similar crimes around the nation but haven't found any
connections that held up on inspection, he said.
There were some promising leads. One of the strongest led to a former
Arlington resident who was convicted of a string of sexual assaults of
children and two killings in Florida. But he had an alibi for the day
Amber was abducted, police said.
The high profile of the case drew distractions, in addition to the false
confessions, which criminologists say is normal. Insistent tipsters kept
reporting the same suspects. A lawyer who swore he knew who killed Amber,
but whose tip did not check out, was killed in a shootout with Bedford
police in 2000.
"This case was an anomaly," Ford said. "It brought up all kinds of
problems that we never had before."
The child who refused to come down from her tree branch when she didn't
want to leave Grandma and Grandpa's house would have graduated from high
school last summer.
She looked forward to graduating from Brownies to Girl Scouts and loved to
rake leaves into piles and jump in them. Her family thinks she would have
been in college somewhere by now.
"She was A-B honor roll," said her grandfather, Jim Whitson. "She always
liked school, got good grades."
Her mother said, "If she got a B, it broke her heart."
Amber's favorite subject was writing.
Gathered in Norris' home in Hurst last week, the Whitsons, Donna Norris
and Amber's aunt, Tammie Vasilio, laughed and sobbed simultaneously as
they imagined Amber learning to drive, discovering boys and getting into
trouble.
Norris flipped through the scrapbook full of Amber's papers, awards and
report cards, stopping at stories she wrote titled Shop Bugs and The Big
Brown Teddy Bear.
There was a homemade Mother's Day card with a drawing on the back of a
very small globe with people circling it, holding hands. Above the
drawing, Amber wrote, "This is the world I want to be in."
Norris paused as she got to the last full page. More than half the book
remains empty.
Norris said it's the Amber they never knew who was stolen from them - the
Amber who would have developed goals, interests and inspiration.
"I was cheated out of that - getting to see her graduate from high
school," Norris said. "I never got to teach her how to put makeup on, or
to see her fall in love for the 1st time.
"She wasn't just my little girl. She was my dreams."
(source for both: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
A branch on a tree in Jim and Glenda Whitson's front yard juts off to the
south, lower than the other limbs and in the opposite direction,
conspicuous in how it hangs alone.
The branch has needed trimming for years, but the couple's granddaughter,
Amber Hagerman, liked to climb the tree and sit on that branch. So it
stays.
In Hurst, her mother keeps 27 Barbie dolls in a box near a scrapbook with
Amber's school certificates, principal's awards and report cards.
Her clothes are folded in drawers, and her pink bicycle is in storage.
"We just can't bring ourselves to throw it away," Glenda Whitson said.
Friday, national Amber Alert Day, is the 10th anniversary of her
abduction, and the death still reverberates. The new Amber Alert postage
stamp will be unveiled in Washington on Friday.
Through the alert system named for the Berry Elementary School 3rd-grader,
broadcasters nationwide have volunteered to interrupt programming to
transmit descriptions and suspect information after child abductions.
Amber's death binds her family, the investigators who still hunt her
killer, the grateful parents of children returned to them by a public
alert system named for the Arlington girl and the faceless man in a black
truck who set all this in motion.
Around 3 p.m. Jan. 13, 1996, Amber rode off on her bike from her
grandparents' central Arlington home. Eight minutes later, a man yanked
the 9-year-old from the bike and into a black pickup.
Her body was found four days later on the bank of a north Arlington creek
east of Texas 360 and north of Green Oaks Boulevard Northeast. Her throat
had been slashed. She wore only a sock on her right foot.
Amber's mother Donna Whitson, now Donna Norris, gives speeches around the
country on child safety and the Amber Alert system when she can afford to
take time off from her job cleaning houses.
Her husband of five years, Randy, writes her speeches. He works on oil
rigs by trade, but she said his words have moved many to tears.
"He never met Amber, but it's still hard for him," Donna Norris said. "He
cries and he has to stop. But he likes to help me, and her."
Norris still has fliers seeking information about Amber's killer ready:
printed and stacked neatly. She hands them out occasionally. They list a
$75,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.
There is no sketch of the suspect. No name.
All that is known is that he looked Anglo or Hispanic and he drove a black
late-model pickup, possibly a Ford, on that day in 1996. He headed west on
Abram Street. That was according to one witness who saw the kidnapping
from a distance while standing in his backyard.
The rest of the description on the flier came from psychological profiles.
CHARACTERISTICS: Approximately 25 years or older, carries a knife, erupts
violently, probably lives alone, possibly recently lost his job or had a
family dispute.
The creek where Amber was found was swollen with recent rain, making
forensic evidence difficult to collect.
Arlington police Sgt. Mark Simpson, who headed his department's Amber Task
Force, now supervises the crimes against persons unit. This crime is the
one that haunts him the most.
"Some things are just beyond the pale," he said.
Beyond the gruesomeness, Simpson said, he is frustrated that a suspect
can't be nabbed in such a haphazard crime.
Amber was taken in broad daylight, along a main thoroughfare. The ramp at
the abandoned Winn-Dixie was in plain view of traffic on Abram Street, a
highly trafficked laundromat and the yards of at least 5 neighbors.
Amber's wounds suggested that the killer was not skilled or experienced
and was perhaps new to this type of crime.
But he got away, despite a task force of 45 officers and four sergeants
working alongside FBI agents and profilers. The city spent more than $1
million to find him. Investigators followed more than 6,000 tips and
leads, and took more than a dozen false confessions.
"The community was just absolutely outraged," Simpson said. "We had every
indication that this guy was not going to stop. And the longer this guy
was out there, the more likely it was that someone else was in danger.
"I have every reason to believe he is still out there," Simpson continued.
"Until I've got him in custody, I'll assume he's a danger to society."
Detective Jim Ford was the lead investigator on the case. Of the 49
Arlington police officers who worked the task force, Ford is the one who
is left working the killing as part of the cold case unit.
Ford has investigated homicides for 23 years and estimates he has worked
on more than 300. He said Amber's case, "without a doubt," is the one that
keeps him up nights.
There is a picture of Amber in his cubicle. He still visits the site of
the kidnapping and Amber's grave. He said he receives about one tip per
month, which is investigated and added to the still-operational database
of Amber information.
"There is nothing worse than a child being brutally murdered," Ford said.
"Everybody went all out, trying to help. There were lots of volunteers and
various businesses put up reward money. We all really wanted to solve this
one."
Killers such as this typically don't stop, Simpson said. Officers have
kept up on similar crimes around the nation but haven't found any
connections that held up on inspection, he said.
There were some promising leads. One of the strongest led to a former
Arlington resident who was convicted of a string of sexual assaults of
children and two killings in Florida. But he had an alibi for the day
Amber was abducted, police said.
The high profile of the case drew distractions, in addition to the false
confessions, which criminologists say is normal. Insistent tipsters kept
reporting the same suspects. A lawyer who swore he knew who killed Amber,
but whose tip did not check out, was killed in a shootout with Bedford
police in 2000.
"This case was an anomaly," Ford said. "It brought up all kinds of
problems that we never had before."
The child who refused to come down from her tree branch when she didn't
want to leave Grandma and Grandpa's house would have graduated from high
school last summer.
She looked forward to graduating from Brownies to Girl Scouts and loved to
rake leaves into piles and jump in them. Her family thinks she would have
been in college somewhere by now.
"She was A-B honor roll," said her grandfather, Jim Whitson. "She always
liked school, got good grades."
Her mother said, "If she got a B, it broke her heart."
Amber's favorite subject was writing.
Gathered in Norris' home in Hurst last week, the Whitsons, Donna Norris
and Amber's aunt, Tammie Vasilio, laughed and sobbed simultaneously as
they imagined Amber learning to drive, discovering boys and getting into
trouble.
Norris flipped through the scrapbook full of Amber's papers, awards and
report cards, stopping at stories she wrote titled Shop Bugs and The Big
Brown Teddy Bear.
There was a homemade Mother's Day card with a drawing on the back of a
very small globe with people circling it, holding hands. Above the
drawing, Amber wrote, "This is the world I want to be in."
Norris paused as she got to the last full page. More than half the book
remains empty.
Norris said it's the Amber they never knew who was stolen from them - the
Amber who would have developed goals, interests and inspiration.
"I was cheated out of that - getting to see her graduate from high
school," Norris said. "I never got to teach her how to put makeup on, or
to see her fall in love for the 1st time.
"She wasn't just my little girl. She was my dreams."
(source for both: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
